IZHEVSK, June 17. /ITAR-TASS/. The Urals’ based IzhAvto car plant, an affiliate of Russia’s major carmaker AVTOVAZ, will start manufacturing its first model of the Nissan brand in August 2014, the plant’s Director General Mikhail Ryabov told ITAR-TASS on Tuesday.

“I cannot tell you which model it will be but it is true that we will start producing the first Nissan car in late August 2014,” he said.

Moreover, the director general announced that IzhAvto will represent the second Nissan model, a sedan, in January 2015. In addition, the company plans to start assembling a Renault car in May 2015.

According to Ryabov, IzhAvto hopes to assembly 72 cars of Russia and foreign design in the current year. In January-May 2014, the company have already manufactured 5,200 new LADA Granta liftback cars, which was designed by AVTOVAZ - IzhAvto’s strategic partner.

Now, Russia is in the top 20 of the world’s biggest carmakers. According to the Russian Industry and Trade Ministry, the country’s automobile output reached 2.192 million, including 1.93 million cars and 168,430 light commercial vehicles, 77,290 trucks and 14,660 buses. Russia’s market with 2.76 million car sales in 2012 was Europe’s second after Germany and the world’s fourth after China, the United States and Germany.

Among Russia’s major car manufacturers are AVTOVAZ, truck producer KAMAZ, GAZ Group (embraces the Gorky car plant, as well as the Pavlovo, Golitsyno and Likino bus plants, the Saransk heavy-duty truck maker, Yaroslavl engine plant and others) and the Sollers company.

Lately, the world’s major car giants - Volkswagen, Skoda, BMW, Ford, Renault, Toyota, Chevrolet, Peugeot-Citroen-Mitsubishi, Nissan, Opel and Kia - came in Russia to create their car assembling enterprises.